SINdicate

by J. T. Nicholas

  I moved closer, focusing not on the person standing in the open but rather scanning the area, looking for anything out of place, anything that might indicate things were not as they seemed. I drew a slow, steadying breath, and stepped out.

  “Ms. Morita.”

  She jumped. Actually, physically jumped, feet clearing the ground and hands coming up into a defensive posture. Her head snapped around, until her eyes found me, standing maybe ten feet away, still shrouded in the shadows. “Detective Campbell?” she asked uncertainly.

  I stepped forward slowly, my own hands held before me in supplication. I’d only spoken with Ms. Morita twice, both times via screen. When I’d caught the case of the murdered and mutilated synthetic woman, I had managed to fast-talk Dr. Fitzpatrick, the actual medical examiner, into having one of his assistants perform an examination of the remains. It was an action that could, technically, have been construed as illegal, and if anyone ever put together the fact that Ms. Morita had performed it with the events that led to the discovery and revealing of Evelyn’s pregnancy, I had no doubt that Tia’s freedom, and perhaps her life, would be in danger. Fortunately, Fitzpatrick was an officious little prick who liked his job and, even if he had put the pieces together, would never endanger it by hinting that the Office of the New Lyons Medical Examiner had played any role whatsoever.

  The ME’s assistant had done a good job and provided me with the leads that, ultimately, allowed me to track down Transatlantic and Fowler. But I’d forgotten how damn young she was. And pretty. Prettier in person than she had been on the screen. She stood five-two or five-three, weighed maybe one-twenty. Slender, but something about the way she stood, the speed with which she had reacted to my words, suggested a level of athleticism. Her clothing—a practical, off-the-rack pantsuit in a navy blue—wasn’t exactly the most flattering of garments, but it couldn’t fully hide a certain litheness about her. Her eyes were dark, almond-shaped, her hair blue-black and falling freely past her shoulders. Her lips were full, cheekbones high, features symmetrical… Beautiful.

  I made myself stop admiring her. It would only make what I had to do next all the more awkward.

  “Yes, Ms. Morita,” I said, stepping to within a couple of yards of her. “It’s me.”

  I gave her a moment to study me in turn. I doubted she would like what she saw nearly as much as I had. I was a big man. Not overly tall, but broad of shoulder. Fit, from the regular martial arts workouts, though starting to lose a little bit of my tone, since I hadn’t been able to practice much in the past month. But outside of that, decidedly average looking. Dark hair cropped short for convenience, brown eyes, a face that covered the front of my head and couldn’t be accused of doing much else for me. Unshaven, since my day—which was getting on toward too long for comfort—had started with a nasty surprise and gone downhill from there. And probably a decade older than the woman in front of me.

  “Detective Hernandez said you need my help. Are you hurt?”

  There was genuine concern in her voice, which surprised me. Was it the professional concern of an aspiring doctor, or something more personal? I was also mildly annoyed that Hernandez had, apparently, sent Ms. Morita out here with no idea of what I needed her to do. That probably wasn’t fair. The more Hernandez told her, the more at risk we’d all be. But it didn’t feel right to keep her in the dark, either.

  “I’m fine, Ms. Morita,” I said.

  “Please. Call me Tia,” she interrupted.

  “Tia. I’m fine.” I hesitated. “I’m afraid the help I need is a little more…unorthodox…than simple medical care.”

  She said nothing, just watched me with those dark, almond eyes. She shifted slightly on her feet, and allowed her hands—which had, until this point, still been raised unconsciously in a defensive posture—to drop to her sides. I took that as a good sign.

  “I need you to perform an autopsy for me.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her nose wrinkled in confusion. “But…you’re not a detective anymore. And… Well…”

  “And, well, I’m wanted by every law enforcement agency in the country—and probably internationally as well,” I agreed. “And I certainly should be busy enough with other things that investigating a death shouldn’t be at the top of my to-do list. Right?”

  She smiled, her lips parting to reveal slightly crooked teeth. “That, yes. And also, other details. Like, I understand why you can’t go to the police, but why do you have a body lying around in the first place? And where exactly would I be performing such an autopsy? And why should I?”

  The last question was asked with a twinkle of the eye that belied its actual intent. The first two, however, reminded me that, beautiful or not, Tia Morita was a smart young woman well on her way to becoming a doctor. I sensed I could probably cajole or convince her without sharing too many details. That she wanted to help me—not necessarily the synthetics or the revolution, but for whatever strange and arcane reasoning that took place in the depths of the female mind, she wanted to help me. But I couldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t manipulate her into helping without fully understanding the risks—to her career, maybe even to her life. Time to come clean.

  “Look,” I said, not really knowing where to begin. “I… Well, I sort of have a body on my hands.” One of her eyebrows arched up, and I hurried on. “Not a body I made. I mean, I didn’t kill the guy. But someone dumped him on my doorstep. Sort of…literally.”

  “Okay.” She drew the word out, and I could see the doubt flickering on her face. But she hadn’t run screaming yet.

  “Someone’s playing a game,” I explained. “A game that could get me and a lot of synthetics killed. We found a note on the remains basically taunting me to find whoever did it.”

  “I didn’t think you were in the police business anymore, Detective.”

  “I’m not,” I growled, some of my frustration leaking through. She flinched, and I immediately felt like an asshat. “Sorry. That’s not directed at you. Just… Long day.” I took a deep breath. “Whoever did this knew where to find me, Tia. Knew where to find me and a bunch of defenseless synthetics who have zero chance of helping themselves. I’ve got to figure out who.”

  She smiled, just a little. “And to do that, you need me.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen my share of bodies, but I don’t know the first thing about doing an actual forensic examination of one. The note said our killer left us all the clues we’d need to find him. But I don’t even know where to start looking.” I hesitated again, then sighed. “And you’re probably putting yourself in danger helping us,” I acknowledged.

  She seemed to shrink a bit at that. “Detective… What’s happening to the synthetics… What you’ve revealed.” She paused, drew a breath, started to talk. Stopped herself. Drew another breath and tried again. “It’s terrible. I mean, if it’s true—”

  “It’s true, Tia. All of it. You barely know me, so I can’t expect you to trust me, but the information is out there. You’ve seen Evelyn. And I’m guessing, if you ever really thought about it, you’d know that it was true. That you’ve known all along that it was true.” I snorted. “That’s the danger and the beauty of the lie we’ve all been told. We’ve been told it so often, for so long, that even when we know it’s a lie, we all just go along with it. Because it’s safer. Because it’s easier.”

  “You’re asking me to risk…everything,” she said, her voice tremulous. “My career, certainly. Performing an unauthorized autopsy on a murder victim? It’s a crime. And with all the violence in the air? Can you tell me that I wouldn’t be putting my life on the line, too?” She shook her head, and I sensed I was losing her. I hated what I had to do next. But I still had to do it.

  “It’s okay, Tia,” I said, my voice gentle. “You don’t have to help. Honestly, it’s what the synthetics expect from us. It’s what they’ve gotten from us for so long that they don’t even know how to respond when
a human bothers to be nice to them. They don’t expect your help. They probably don’t even want your help. I could have used it.” I shrugged. “But I understand. You have to look out for yourself.”

  “That’s not fair!” she said at once. Her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed in anger.

  “No,” I agreed. “It’s not. But ‘fair’ isn’t exactly something that’s going around these days.”

  I could see the doubts flittering around her face. I hated myself more than a little for that, for playing on her emotions, for making her doubt herself. I had sensed almost from day one that Tia Morita was one of those people who honestly cared about others. The type of person who if someone on the other side of the world suffered a tragedy, she would feel real pain on their behalf. I envied people like that—envied their ability to feel empathy on such a grand scale. I wasn’t one of them. Maybe I could have been, but Annabelle’s dead mother killed that part of me as surely as she had killed Annabelle.

  “Everything you’re saying about synthetics is true?” It was a question, but she already knew the answer, and it showed as she stated, “They really are people.”

  “As human as you or me,” I agreed, pitching my voice low, trying to convey my certainty.

  “Then how can I refuse to help?” she asked. It was a legitimate question, and one I suspected she wanted a real answer to. I couldn’t give her one. Instead, I started filling her in on the downsides—well, the downsides that didn’t involve threats to her personal safety or freedom.

  “I’m afraid that the…let’s call them facilities…where you’d have to perform the autopsy are rudimentary. Not much in the way of equipment. All of it field expedient.” I hesitated, not sure how to broach the next topic.

  “And before I take you there… I’m going to have to make sure you’re not being tracked, electronically.”

  “You’re going to have to what?” she demanded.

  I grimaced. “Look, Tia. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I wouldn’t have asked Hernandez to set up this meeting if that was the case. But it’s not just me. We’re going to the place where Evelyn—the pregnant synthetic woman—is hiding. Where dozens of synthetics, all of whom will be killed if they’re found, are hiding. We can’t afford to take chances. I need your help. My life, and the life of untold synthetics may well depend on it. But I understand if you don’t want to. I have no right to ask it of you. But as much as I need you, I can’t put them at risk.”

  “So, what? You need to frisk me or something?” A flush of color suffused her cheeks as she said those words, but her gaze didn’t leave mine.

  I felt the rush of blood to my own face. “Not exactly. The feds, hell, even the local departments, have access to listening devices and trackers that a frisk would never catch.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. Her face stayed flushed, but her tone was even as she said, “Just what, exactly, are you asking of me, Detective?”

  I reached into the bag in my left hand and began pulling out its contents. A pair of blue scrubs pants, scrubs top. Socks. Slip-on shoes that would work for a variety of sizes of feet. I hadn’t quite been able to bring myself to put together a selection of underwear and bras. I was in a big enough minefield already; that seemed a step or three too far. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave your things here. All of your things.”

  “By the look on your face, I’m guessing I can’t just go behind this mausoleum and change?”

  “Uhm…no,” I said. I grimaced and shook my head. Why did I feel like a schoolboy sneaking into a strip club? For fuck’s sake, this was necessary to ensure the safety of all those people back at the restaurant in the LNW. It had nothing to do with watching a pretty young lady take her clothes off. And it’s not like Ms. Morita had anything I hadn’t seen before.

  “I can’t take the chance that you might transfer something while I wasn’t looking,” I said.

  “So you’ll be looking? You’re asking a lot here, Campbell,” she growled. “I’m trusting you enough to put my life and career on the line. You can’t even trust me this little bit?”

  Something of my internal turmoil must have shown on my face, because she laughed then, a tinkling sound of amusement with just a touch of embarrassed nerves thrown in for good measure. But she took pity on me. “Give me the clothes,” she said. “I assume I can at least turn around?”

  I dropped the clothes back into the bag and handed it over to her. I was suddenly unsure of where to look. Did I maintain eye contact? Something about that seemed super creepy. I certainly couldn’t drop my gaze from her eyes to any other part of her, not with her getting ready to disrobe. “That will be fine, Ms. Morita.”

  “I think we’re a little past ‘Ms. Morita,’ Detective,” she said. She took the bag and turned her back on me. There was no hesitation in her movement now, as she slipped out of her jacket and began undoing the buttons on her blouse.

  I wanted to look away. I wanted to leer. Either way, I had to watch. Neither my discomfort, nor Tia’s, mattered when weighed against the safety of the synthetics. I knew I could trust Tia. But that was the thing about betrayal—you could only be betrayed by those you trusted. It was a shitty way to view the world, but experience had taught me that the world was a pretty shitty place.

  Tia moved quickly, efficiently, dropping her blouse to the ground and reaching behind her to unhook her bra. It joined her jacket and shirt, and she reached down with one arm to root around in the plastic bag and dig out the scrubs top. She threw a glance in my direction as she did so, one arm across her breasts, which, I couldn’t help noticing, were more ample than the unflattering pantsuit had hinted. The look on her face was one of frank appraisal, as if she were evaluating exactly how I was watching her. I did my best to keep my face professional and impassive.

  She pulled the scrubs top over her head. It was a little too large, the hem falling perhaps halfway down her hips. Still exercising that calm efficiency, she kicked off her shoes and socks and then reached for her waistband. Her slacks and panties—something black and lacy that I felt a little ashamed for noticing—pooled onto the ground and she stepped out of them. She bent toward the ground once more, to retrieve the scrubs pants, and a long-forgotten word drifted from somewhere in the depths of my mind: callipygian. Tia stepped quickly into the pants, then turned back to me, a challenging look on her face. “Well?” she asked.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking, and damned if I was going to give an opinion on what I had witnessed. Mama Campbell hadn’t raised that big of a fool. “We’ll have to leave your things here,” I said, choosing to interpret her question in the least dangerous—for me, anyway—way possible. “Put them in the bag. We can stash them by one of the mausoleums. I’ll bring you back here when we’re done.”

  “And my tools?” she asked, nodding to a darker patch of shadow in the lee of the mausoleum. “I couldn’t bring much, but I’ve at least got some instruments.”

  I shook my head, thinking of the array of cutlery, skewers, tongs, and other cast-off cooking implements back at the safe house. “Sorry, Tia,” I said. “We’ll just have to make do.”

  “Do you really think that someone snuck a GPS locator into my scalpel?” she asked, incredulous.

  “No,” I replied honestly. I felt the urge to throw my hands in the air or maybe punch a tombstone but managed—barely—to restrain myself. “Dammit, Tia. If it were just me, just my safety, none of this would be necessary. You’re right. You deserve more trust than this. But you can buy a fucking radio tracking tag for under a buck, sync it to your screen, and know to within a few feet where it is at all times. The commercial ones are so small you can barely see them. I know the cops have access to better than that, and I’m betting that the feds have even cooler toys. I don’t think they’re tracking your scalpel, or whatever else you have in the bag, but I can’t be sure. Any more than I can be sure there isn’t a track
er in your clothing or your bag or stuck to the bottom of your shoe. I’m sorry. I just can’t take the chance.”

  “Do you have any idea how much harder that’s going to make things?”

  I didn’t, not really. I could imagine, though. “We’ll just have to make do,” I said again, somewhat apologetically.

  “Oh, it’s we, now, is it?” she said. “Does that mean you’re not wearing underwear, either?” The smile was gone and there was an edge to it. It wasn’t anger—at least I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t quite place it. Her eyes were…considering.

  “Well,” I said with a shrug, “I figure you might need an assistant. I don’t know anything about what you do, but I can fetch and carry with the best of them.” I gave her my best disarming smile and tried to get the image of the pale curve of her bare hips out of my mind.

  “Fine.” She took the time to carefully fold her discarded clothing and place it in the bag, nestling it deeper into the shadows. Then she turned back to me. “Let’s go, then. It’s kind of chilly out here.”

  The material of the scrubs top was rather thin, so I could, in fact, tell that Ms. Morita was a touch chilly. But once again, I said nothing.

  Mama Campbell and fools.

  Chapter 6

  We didn’t talk much as I drove us back through the city and toward the LNW. As we got closer to the water’s edge, and the neighborhoods around us took on a darker, more ominous cast, Tia stared at the outward signs of poverty—the boarded windows; the groups of young men gathered on corners giving hard stares to anything and everything; the scattered detritus that somehow, despite the efforts of the sanitation services, always seemed to pile up in drifts of garbage. Her shoulders took on a tighter, almost defensive, set, and I could sense a general stiffening of her entire body.